Every day, averages of 54,500 youths are incarcerated in U.S. detention or correctional institutions. These incarcerations may harm the youths and make it more likely they will continue offending. It is important, where possible, to intervene with youth and families prior to detention or incarceration. No single factor is responsible for juvenile offending and subsequent incarcerations minority race, early childhood behavior problems and poor family functioning have all been implicated (Mallett, Stoddard Dare and Seck, 2009). For an increasing and record number of communities in America and now in other countries, youth courts are providing a positive alternative to the juvenile justice system with significant and unexpected favorable outcomes. Youth court is most commonly identified as a juvenile justice program, given that the vast majority of youth cases referred are from police, probation, juvenile and family court, and even many of the school referrals for crimes and offenses. Youth courts in America are also called teen courts, peer courts, student courts, and youth peer courts. The first European youth court, called peer panel, was launched in Preston, England, in September of 2007. Australia is currently planning the launch of the first youth court, calling it youth peer panel and Japan uses the name teen court. Regardless of the name, these peer justice and youth empowerment programs have much in common. Since 1994, the number of local youth court programs has grown from approximately 78 local programs to more than 1,200 local youth court programs in America, with more than...

Forty-nine states and the District of Columbia all have Youth Court programs, with Connecticut being the only state without one. This rapid growth in the number of local youth court programs is a textbook example of a local grass-roots movement. With the exception of a few states, the vast majority of this growth has been on the local level. Adult leaders are largely responsible for implementing and operating this increasingly popular juvenile justice program that engages volunteer youth in the sentencing of their peers. Data collection and empirically logical research are only further fueling the youth court movement as researchers are finding that youth courts not only reduce recidivism, but also foster a healthy attitude toward rules and authority among youthful offenders (Peterson, 2009).
References

Basic Statistics Juvenile Crime. (2010). Retrieved April 30, 2010, from PBS Web site:

http://www.pbs.org/wgbh/pages/frontline/shows/juvenile/stats/basic.html

Juvenile Delinquency. (2010). Retrieved April 30, 2010, from Answers.com Web site:

http://www.answers.com/topic/juvenile-delinquency

Lab, Steven P., Williams, Marian R., Holcomb, Jefferson E., Burek, Melissa W., King, William

R. And Buerger, Micheal E. (2007). Criminal Justice the Essentials. New York: Oxford

Mallett, Christopher a., Stoddard Dare, Patricia and Seck, Mamadou M. (2009). Predicting

juvenile delinquency: The nexus of childhood maltreatment, depression and bipolar…